A column about beer

Aussie men love their beer. It’s second only to Bradman. (And now that it can be bought with a Talking Boony, it may even have sneaked into first place.) When it comes to drinking, bundy and Coke are probably second and third place on the dais, but beer is the undisputed champ.

We love it so much that our language is full of references to it. “I owe you a beer”, “go for a quick beer”… it’s a proxy for being sociable. From Hawkey to Singo, it’s always been the great leveller – in conformist Australia, membership of the group is defined in largely in terms of how quickly you can get a schooner glass from full to upside-down on your head.

Which is why I’ve always felt quite ashamed of the fact that I don’t like beer. Now, before you chuck the newspaper away in disgust at my softness, I’m not a teetotaller. (Phew, nearly lost you there.) And sure, on a hot day, I can sometimes enjoy the refreshing nature of a really cold ale. If I ignore the taste. But given a choice between yeasty, bloating beer, and just about anything short of a Bacardi Breezer, I’ll steer well away from our amber national heritage. In fact, I don’t even like wine much. I am a spirits drinker.

When I put it like that, it sounds kind of hardcore. Yeah, I like the hard stuff. Forget your weak, watery beer – mine’s the top shelf. But unfortunately, that’s not quite how it works out. Because while I’d probably get away with a scotch on the rocks or downing vodka shots, my drink preferences are much more embarrassing.

At the pub, when someone buys a round, I usually humiliate myself by asking for a vodka and orange, or perhaps a gin and tonic. Which is inevitably met by a roll of the eyes, as if my mate will be embarrassing himself just by ordering it. And even more rude of me, they’re always more at least a dollar expensive than beers, which means I’m asking others to shell out more money on account of my weakness.

Then, when I drink it, everyone looks sneeringly at the dainty little glass in my hand, with its dainty ice – or worse still, a baby straw and a little slice of orange. It’s desperately uncool. And my attempts to build up its street cred by pointing out that it’s Fatboy Slim’s favourite drink somehow seem to backfire.

My stance really pushes mateship to the limits. After all, the ANZACs didn’t storm Gallipoli beach so we could drink lolly water.

But it gets worse. Ever since I visited Kuletos on King St, Newtown during happy hour as an impressionable 19-year-old, I’ve loved cocktails. Both citrusy or milky, and the more elaborate the better. I’m not really at home in the swanky, beautiful-people-filled surrounds of places like Longrain or The Loft, but the sheer deliciousness of the drinks keeps me coming back. Particularly those drinks with exotic Latin names, like mojitos. I even know my caipirinha from my caprioska.

But what I don’t know is how to avoid being ostracised. Because real men don’t drink delicious concoctions of rum, fresh lime and mint. (Even though they’re much more alcoholic than boring old VB.) And so I remain a social outcast whenever I go to the pub.

I will reverse the anti-cocktail stigma if it kills me. Which it will, probably – coming soon to a pub near you. Specifically, cocktail drinkers need our own Talking Boony to bring the joy cocktails to the masses. And that’s why I’ve performed some radical surgery to my Boony. Next time I go down to the local to watch a one-dayer washed down with a delicious vodka-based concoction, I’m going to take a long a more metrosexual little friend to provide commentary. A Simpering Thorpey, who makes comments such as “Michael Clarke would look great in Armani,” and recommends Glenn McGrath take to the field with a pearl necklace. Take that, beer drinkers.

Flying the blokey skies

Groucho Marx once mentioned not wanting to join a club that would have him as a member. That witticism may never have been more appropriate than for the club I just signed up for, the LynxJet Mile High Club.
Inspired by a predictably popular article on this website, I joined up so I could visit the 'exclusive' lounge and experience the website's cheesy titillation at full bore.
Just to blog about it, you understand. It's an interesting sociological and business story. With breasts.

And now apparently my membership card is coming in the mail. I can't wait to enter what I'm sure will be an enthralling world of deodorant-related benefits and privileges.
In the spirit of FHM and Ralph's 'new lad' culture, the Lynx site justifies something that would normally be termed sexist is justified by virtue of it being 'ironic'. Because when its 'mostesses' flash their bazoombas at fans and provide massages right around the country, they do so with an air of wry self-parody. And because everyone involved knows it's tacky, it's not exploitative – it's fun.
And the beautiful thing is, of course, that the male libido is completely irony proof. So we fellas get our jollies – guilt free. Woo hoo. Hell yeah. Rrrrooowww! Etc.
It's been working brilliantly well. I can scarcely believe it, but the SMH article reckons that this strategy has netted them 85% of male deodorant sales in supermarkets. Talk about your Lynx effect. What a brilliant way to convince guys to make themselves smell like a blend of musk LifeSavers and over-ripe tropical fruit.
And you still think that the LynxJet vision of airborne hot tubs is sexist? Well, watch out, because you're about to get egg on your face. "The two most senior marketing executives responsible for Lynx are women and "very much supportive" of the strategy," says the spokesperson. Who just happens to be a man. But he says the women are into it. So there.
While marvelling at the patriarchy's latest brilliant device for getting women to wear hardly any clothes, I realised that there is a victim in all this. As opposed to those wonderfully empowered 'mostesses', of course. And that is the Bahamas' very own LynxAir, an "island happy, people friendly airline flying people, parcels and mail to hot spots in the Caribbean."
Apparently lots of people think that LynxJet is a real airline, and are genuinely disappointed to learn it isn't. So imagine the people who sign up to fly Lynx Air around the Caribbean only to discover no onboard massage, hot tubs or even mostesses.
JetStar nixed the idea of painting a plane in the LynxJet insignia, but those nifty marketing boffins at Unilever (a phallic image if ever I've heard one) shouldn't give up on their dream of seeing their raunchy airline actually existing. All they need is a partnership with those other crusaders for women's liberation, Hooters Air.
Dominic Knight

A pokie in the eye for the big clubs

Is there anyone less deserving of our sympathy than the big registered clubs who whinge about the pokie machine tax? Being forced to pay a large proportion of the funds they gouge from problem gamblers to the State Government that's forced to deal with the huge social problems these clubs create is not unfair. It's good policy. And given how much they whinge, it's also quite good fun.

After Michael Egan identified them as a lucrative source of additional revenue, and created a differential system where the mega-clubs with hundreds of pokies pay higher tax, ClubsNSW has done everything in its power to turn public opinion against Labor. Premier Iemma did his usual bad compromise that pleases nobody and reduced the tax, but kept it differential. But that wasn't enough for the greedy clubs. So now they're hosting a massive $1000 per head fundraiser for Liberal leader Peter Debnam – who would be better advised to follow the example of his Queensland counterparts, who are arguing that the Beattie Government is addicted to gambling revenue, and that pokie numbers should be slashed.
Their spokesman had a hilariously bitchy little whinge about it, too:
Jeremy Bath, a ClubsNSW spokesman, said: "We would have liked to be doing this with the ALP but there's no point as they have made it clear they don't value the world of clubs."
The ALP does value it enormously, actually. At about $1.3 billion in extra tax revenue.
Let's just reflect on the statistics, shall we? NSW has a 'limit' of an astonishing 104,000 pokie machines. (That's one pokie machine per 65 people!) We have 10% of the world's pokies. 78,020 of these are in clubs. In 2003, according an SMH article, the average pokie generated $47,000 per year in revenue (I assume that's the profit after taxes). So that's $3,666,940,000 that the clubs make out of pokies a year. And the Liberals want to freeze the tax at its 2005 rate, saving the clubs $800 million. No wonder the clubs are shouting them a dinner.
The problem is that the clubs have outgrown the umbrella of legislation designed to help promote community groups, like RSLs, sport clubs and cultural clubs, and are running more or less like businesses. Panthers has gone way beyond what was necessary to support Penrith rugby league, becoming a massive conglomerate that has taken over lots of smaller clubs in the area. So too the Bulldogs club, whose Oasis folly – now aborted – had very little to do with the purported aims of supporting rugby league.
Yes, these are non-profit organisations. But what that means, judging by my visits to them, is that they reinvest their income into making their clubs more profitable, and building more room for more poker machines. Just because you can't return your profits to shareholders doesn't mean that a club can't become incredibly greedy.
And so can its employees. In 2003, it was revealed that Panthers was paying $3 million to a company owned by its chief executive, Roger Cowan. Not exactly the "sport and community projects" that the clubs like to argue their revenues go into.
By becoming addicted to fat pokie profits, clubs have abandoned their original aims. Instead of providing places where people from the local area can come together and socialise, furthering the aims of the original organisation, they've become mini-casinos. And instead of building communities, they have started to destroy its members.
I've had the pleasure of visiting the Rooty Hills RSL Club several times in the past few years. It once billed itself as "The Vegas Of The West", but it's changed that to "The Venue Of The West" – the original slogan didn't quite conform with the goal of being about more than pokies. The main area is a massive pokie parlour the size of a football field, with a couple of bars and eateries squashed onto the side. I can't think of an environment less conducive to socialising – or honouring the memory of returned servicemen. Who evidently fought and died for this country so that its most vulnerable could be fleeced by pokies in their name. Something to ponder during the compulsory minute of silence.
I once slept there as part of a foolhardy student excursion to Australia's Wonderland, and I'll never forget the queue of elderly women waiting out the front at 9am, when the pokie lounge opened. It's one of the most depressing things I've ever seen.
Sure, Rooty Hill does good things. They gave over a million dollars to the community last year. But I couldn't find anywhere on its website the total amount it earned from its massive number of pokies.
Besides, the extra tax will go to the community. In the form of a higher health budget. Which is a bit more important than trying to stave off rugby league's inevitable death.
Personally, I think pokies simply shouldn't be legal, as is that case in most territories. The social detriment far outweighs any dubious benefit. If they are legal, then sure, I support the clubs having them ahead of publicans, because at least some of the profits do go to good causes. But the number per venue should be hugely limited.
And therein lies the way for clubs to beat Egan's differential tax, other than resorting to political blackmail by consorting with the Liberals. If they simply reduced their number of poker machines to a slightly less obscene number, they won't have to pay such a high tax. Who knows, maybe some of that reclaimed space could be used for something really controversial and different for a registered club? Like, I don't know, providing a place for people to actually sit and socialise. Which is presumably what the ex-servicemen actually wanted when they started the clubs after returning from the war.
Dominic Knight

The cartoon conundrum

Sometimes the clash of civilisations theory proposed by Samuel Huntington and debated in arts faculties around the world becomes all too real. Like today, for instance, when the Danish embassy in Beirut was torched, injuring hundreds. And the Western media, including two Fairfax-owned newspapers in New Zealand, are continuing to fan the flames by reprinting the cartoons in solidarity. All of which is why I think blogger Tim Blair is so brave for becoming the first person in the Australian media to reproduce the inflammatory cartoons this afternoon.

Blair published them in response to the call by Victorian Sheik Fehmi El-Imam for the Australian media not to publish them. Which seemed to serve as red rag to the bull – as Blair put it in his typically blunt manner, "Warning politely declined, Sheik." Which is a predictable reaction to a fairly self-defeating request. The Sheik's comments virtually guaranteed their publication.
I was tempted to put them up here on Thursday and Friday, and debate whether they should have been published in the first place, but ultimately decided not to go there. It would have necessarily involved extensive discussions with other people within the SMH and would potentially have placed others in harm's way. For the same reason, I'm not going to link to them now. It will only slow people who want to find them down by about three seconds.
This whole incident is a storm, or perhaps more accurately a Molotov cocktail in a teacup. It seems almost surreal that you can publish a cartoon in a relatively obscure newspaper in Europe and cost your countries' companies millions of dollars and get your embassy torched amid massive protests in the Middle East. I won't bother condemning these outrages. It's obvious.
But I don't think either side has distinguished itself much. The West does rightly cherish its freedom of speech, but along with any freedom comes a degree of responsibility in its use. If you goad somebody by being deliberately provocative, you shouldn't be shocked by the response. And because the cartoons were published as a deliberate response to the problem of finding illustrators to depict the Prophet, it seems like they were asking for an explosive response.
Jyllands-Posten is far from blameless, in my opinion, because I think a different standard of behaviour should be applied to the West. I think most Australians would agree that the Islamic world's attitude to free speech troubles us, and that we would love to see it develop to become more like our own. But given that we are all aware of the problem, it doesn't seem sensible or helpful to aggravate it like this. If you bait a dog with sharp teeth, and it bites you, is it a huge surprise?
The other problem is that the illustrations seem to have so little merit. Depicting the Prophet with a turban-bomb is basically just offensiveness for its own sake. And while personally I don't have a problem with that, I can understand that people do. And it's not like our own record with religious icons and free speech is particularly distinguished – look at the furore over Piss Christ, which made waves in the US Senate and which Australian Christians took to court. Religious people of any persuasion are enraged by blasphemy to a degree that's hard for a non-believer to comprehend.
The West's self-righteousness is also fairly hard for the Islamic world to take, as these press quotes suggest, Among them, I've got particular sympathy for the perspective of Shireen Mazari in Pakistan's The Nation:
The hypocrisy and falsehoods surrounding [Europe's] claim to "freedom of expression" is what needs to be exposed. Legal and political challenges are far more effective than simply burning flags or death threats which only undermine the strong case that Muslims have against these forces of hate in Europe.
And as The Guardian writes:
It is one thing to assert the right to publish an image of the Prophet... but it is another thing to put that right to the test, especially when to do so inevitably causes offence to many Muslims... That is why the restraint of most of the British press may be the wiser course - at least for now. There has to be a very good reason for giving gratuitous offence of this kind.
I suspect that all the high-falutin' solidarity in the Western press would not have happened were this not a chance to proclaim our moral superiority over the Islamic world. After all, the attempts to ban Piss Christ didn't inspire art galleries across the world to replicate the image as a show of defiance against the Christian right.
There may well be a time when the West needs to band together to protect its most fundamental rights and beliefs, and to assert that we will not compromise on the principles which are important to us for anyone. It may be necessary to offend people of other religions to do so. And if the struggle is objectively important, or the work of art valuable, count me in. The defence of The Satanic Verses is an excellent example of a battle for freedom of expression worth fighting.
When you know you're guaranteed a disproportionate, violent, ugly reaction, it's worth thinking twice about the value of a course of action. Ultimately, when I look at these unfunny, pointlessly offensive cartoons, it's hard to conclude that they're worth the hassle.

Everything’'s cruisy at Club Mac Afloat

The chronic underfunding of Australian universities is something of a tragedy. But Macquarie University’s revenue-raising response, reported in the Herald this morning, is nothing short of hilarious. The university whose somewhat cruisy student lifestyle has led it to be dubbed ‘Club Mac’ has now decided to take it to the next level by giving courses aboard a cruise ship.

700 students will pay $25,000 for a 16-week voyage aboard a luxurious Royal Caribbean Cruises liner, which has been ridiculously redubbed The Scholar Ship. Or in other words, The Really Mum And Dad, It’s Not Just A Huge Bludge Ship.
I think it’s an excellent idea. While most people’s experience of university was a little rowdy and drunken, and involved a modicum of sexual experimentation, this is the first time a university course has actually been combined with a Contiki tour.
Professor Tony Adams, who is Macquarie’s ‘International Pro-Vice Chancellor’ – a.k.a. Director of Profiteering From International Students – says that the course will “teach students skills they need to work in a global market”. And so it will. This floating drunken orgy will be the perfect preparation for this post-globalisation era, where deals can live or die on whether, for instance, you can hold your sake at a Japanese karaoke bar. And it will be a fantastic opportunity for students from different backgrounds to form an “international learning community”, as Adams puts it. Although the different ideas they'll exchange will probably mainly be about the best way of rolling a joint.
The parents who'll be funding this junket are reassured that the alcohol intake will be controlled, and that an elected student council will set its own rules. Yes, and student councils have such a glowing record on the responsible consumption of alcohol. That said, they probably won't drink much. But only because, as anyone who’s ever suffered through a harbour cruise knows, you spew much faster on a rocking boat.
I’m also pleased to see that the remarkable influence of L. Ron Hubbard on education http://www.appliedscholastics.org/lrh_ed.php is continuing. According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_org, the founder of Scientology used to give his highest-level courses on board a ship in order to avoid prosecution. The members of the ‘Sea Org’, as they were known, had to sign an employment contract that was binding for a billion years. (An idea likely to be adopted in the first round of amendments to the WorkChoices legislation.) Perhaps The Scholar Ship has also realised that by sailing in international waters, it too can avoid fraud prosecutions from parents who’ve had to fork out 25 grand for a four month long binge?
So what will students actually get out of this? While universities in such prestigious centres of higher learning as Mexico, Ghana and Morocco signed up to funnel their richer students into this ridiculous profiteering venture, only one uni has signed up to debase the value of the degrees it awards by allowing the ‘courses’ aboard this floating circus to count towards them. That’s right, our very own Macquarie University.
Still, it’s got to beat studying at North Ryde.

The day you went away...

It’s time I stopped writing about affairs in the wider world, and used this blog as the confessional for indulging private concerns that is the trademark of blogging. Because there’s something I need to get off my chest. I am in an abusive relationship. And it doesn’t hurt any less just because it happens to be with my computer.

It seems all I do is give. Constantly I lavish lavish care, affection and time on my beloved Powerbook. I shower it with gifts – a new mouse, a pretty stand. And it said I wasn’t giving it enough space, so I even bought it an external hard drive. And what do I get in return? Today, it left me.
Sure, the hollow shell of what once was my laptop remains. But the computer I once knew, with all my emails and files, has gone. And I’m brokenhearted.
I was a fool. I fell so deeply for it because of its looks. Call me superficial, but it’s just so beautiful. And not just in a shallow, exterior kind of way. If you’ve ever spent much time using the Mac operating system, you’ll know it’s beautiful on the inside too.
And I’m not alone – 472 other people on this site alone have fallen under its spell. And some guy even wrote a book about it called Love At First Boot. Not even I’m that big an Apple tragic.
But back to my heartbreak. The biggest problem started yesterday, when I turned on the computer only to get this message:

What a beautifully designed error screen! It’s so typically Apple, with multiple languages and everything. They really are good at aesthetics. Much better than the Windows ‘blue screen of death’.
But unfortunately, when I followed the instructions and restarted it, the same thing happened again. And again. Which made me wonder, sacrilegiously I know, that perhaps they could have put a bit less thought into having it display all those languages so beautifully, and perhaps more into explaining WHAT’S ACTUALLY WRONG WITH THE BLOODY THING AND HOW YOU FIX IT.
My Mac guru friend explained to me that this error is known as “kernel panic”. Which to me sounds like a stoner’s late night KFC run. But I figured it was okay. I back up daily, and MacOS has an excellent repair system – if you boot from the system DVD, it fixes itself. Only while I was booting from the DVD, it crashed again.
So I figured I’d ring the Apple support line. It’s only six months old, after all. And it came with a year’s warranty. So guess how much they wanted to tell me how to fix my wonderful, nearly-new, already-horribly-overpriced laptop?
$579.
No, that’s not a typo. It really does cost $579. For which I get three years’ warranty and phone support. Because while I’d gotten a fairly ungenerous year’s warranty with the machine, it turns out that the standard phone support is only three months. For a laptop that costs more than almost anything else on the market. It’s outrageous. It’s disgusting. And it didn’t make me feel any better when the technician said I could get one-time phone support for a mere $50.
So I restarted it, and restarted it, and eventually managed to reinstall the operating system. It worked beautifully, backing up my old system and copying across all my files, programmes and settings automatically. It even remembered my passwords. Beautiful ease of use, as usual. There’s no way a Windows PC can do that.
Except then when I restarted it, it froze like a cheap Dell with no class.
So it’s off to the repair shop this afternoon. And I just can’t function. No programs, no files, no bookmarks, no passwords. Even my simplest daily tasks, like reading the blog comments, are extremely painful. I am having serious abandonment issues.
But most of all, I just feel used.

Fitter, happier, more productive – through juice!

I love juice bars. They serve delicious sugary drinks that I can convince myself are relatively healthy because they're low in fat. Even though if I don't exercise, the substantial carb load will turn into fat. That is, unless I take them with a slimming supplement like 'Skinny BOOST'. Phew!

I particularly enjoy Boost Juice, especially since they finally started putting nutritional information on their website (which is the most annoying I've ever seen, at least until you turn the sound off) and I've been able to see that my favourite smoothie, a regular "Gym Junkie" (embarrassing to order, but delicious) contains around 20% of the recommended daily kilojoule intake. Although to be honest, I suspected it was more. Surely nothing that tastes so much like a milkshake can be entirely good for you.
What irritates me are the supplements they try to flog you. There's precious little evidence they work, as Choice magazine found: "Our advice is to ignore juice bars’ weight loss claims and ‘slimming’ supplements." And some of the claims are just ridiculous – one unnamed juice bar surveyed by Choice (not Boost or Pulp) claimed that its echinacea supplement could cure cancer.
One of the biggest scams, though, seems to be wheatgrass. Boost says it's "just as nutritional (sic) as downing a bunch of fresh leafy green vegies". Best of all, they say it's "claimed to be a fantastic boost for those whose diet is lacking because it contains a huge sourse (sic) of essential vitamins and minerals." They don't say by whom this is claimed, of course... it's the 'passive of diminished responsibility'.
Choice is very skeptical of wheatgrass, saying it's "probably harmless". A detailed study by the American National Council Against Health Fraud provides more evidence against the 'wonder shot', showing that it has far fewer nutrients than regular vegetables. In particular, it points out that the chlorophyll that's supposed to provide 'detox' does nothing because it isn't absorbed. So given that wheatgrass is expensive and tastes disgusting, it's essentially a rip-off.
The alternative to drinking the stuff is to take wheatgrass enemas. I think we can agree that isn't exactly an attractive proposition.
Undeterred by the news that the ACCC was investigating the health claims of juice bar supplements, a whole new range of ridiculous supplements has come out. Boost is now marketing a 'Zen booster', which presumably provides enlightenment in a convenient polystyrene cup. It's certainly easier than meditating.
But my favourite silly new supplement comes from Easyway, who are marketing a liquid oxygen shot:
Oxygen 4 Life! The Hottest Supplement in Town!
Feeling tired? Running out of breath? Then you need an Oxygen 4 Life! This revolutionary new taste of liquid oxygen is making headlines across the country! Made with 100 % natural ingredients, it will boost your day incredibly! A shot will maximise your mental clarity and help alleviate fatigue levels! For only 50 cents extra, it will sure bring a healthy touch to our drinks!
Which sounds excellent until you realise that the temperature of liquid oxygen is around –195°C. So this "revolutionary new taste" might be a little hard to drink. Besides which, it clearly doesn't work – whoever drafted that press release is evidently seriously lacking in mental clarity.
Let's hope the ACCC comes down hard on this kind of rubbish. Juice from juice bars is delicious, but it isn't healing, slimming, brain-improving, or indeed in any way supernatural.
Dominic Knight
 

A column about Thai restaurants

The statistic that a million Australians now live overseas is often quoted these days. And every Christmas, it seems like half of them return to Sydney to regale us of their exciting lives in New York, London and other exotic climes. But for all the amazing experiences they bore us with, like how they flew to Ibiza last weekend and hung out with Moby, or how nightclubs in London have so much better drugs than ours, there are some things they can’t get overseas.

In December and January, our beaches are jam-packed full of pale expat Australian skin alongside the regular pasty Poms, desperately trying to get a tan so they can make their workmates jealous when they get back to London. And even the most desperate-to-impress expat acknowledge that Sydney coffee is better. But the one thing I’ve been finding my overseas-dwelling friends miss about Sydney above all is Thai food.

As a result, I’ve been eating Thai several times a week since mid-December, and each time I’m reminded how lucky Sydneysiders are to be blessed with such an abundance of excellent Thai restaurants. Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook sparked a controversy a few years ago when he declared that chicken tikka masala was now a British national dish. (Which comes as a huge relief to anyone who’s tried other forms of British cuisine.) Australia’s more relaxed about these things, but if somebody claimed pad thai as our national dish, no-one would be likely to disagree with them. Well, outside of Cronulla.

It wasn’t this way when I grew up. I only had my first proper Thai meal at around the age of 16. Suburban Chinese with luminous sweet-and-sour pork was about as exotic as things got in my childhood. But once I’d eaten enough Thai to know my green curry from my masuman, I went crazy – especially at uni, when the combination of flavour and cheapness made it the perennial eating-out option.

The other reason was because Sydney Uni is so close to King St, the undisputed Thai food capital of Sydney. I don’t know what the maximum possible number of Thai restaurants in one street is, but Newtown must surely have passed it. I counted fourteen on King St using the White Pages website, and there were at three I could think of that weren’t even in the list. Although if you’d asked me to guess, I would have said there were around 600.

But one thing concerns me deeply about Sydney’s Thai scene. I fear there may be a decline in the the quality that we all love almost as much as the food. Our Thai restaurateurs are becoming tired from pun names. Or, as they would have said in better, wittier times, Thai-red of pun names.

Glancing down the list of King St’s Thai establishments, there is a distinct shortage of plays on words. Thai Pothong, Thai Jaroen and Thai La-Ong aren’t trying, while Thai Land deserves a fail grade for not even trying. The only establishments waving the flag these days are good old Thai Tanic, Thai Riffic and the very clever Thai Times Nine, which makes no sense whatsoever until you realise it’s at 45 King St – five times nine. Bravo.

I think it’s time the National Trust stepped in. All Thai pun names like Bow Thai, Thai Me Up and Thainatown should be slapped with heritage orders immediately. But I’d go even further. I would insist that all Thai restaurants in Sydney must henceforth be given a pun name.

Some restaurateurs may argue that all the good ‘Thai’ puns have gone. Surely not? But even if they have, one of Sydney’s most acclaimed new Thai restaurants, Spice I Am, in Wentworth Avenue in the city, has shown the way – “Siam”, of course, is the former name of Thailand.

We must all do our bit to preserve Sydney’s unique Thai pun heritage. So next time you go to a restaurant without one, suggest one. (Personally, I’m going to tell Thai Pothong it should change its name to Thai Napple.) We can make it happen – but only if we are willing to Thai.

Ten ways to save on ATM fees

It's not exactly a huge surprise that the banks are gouging us all blind with ATM fees, but the figure of $600m has outraged everybody in the media today. And that figure will certainly make me think twice before using a non-bank ATM. Although I still will, because I'll be at a pub, and the idea of paying $1.50 to get more cash will seem like a small price to pay next to the amount I'm about to dump on the pokies.

Actually, I don't mind paying for those little 'convenience' ATMs. The shopkeeper deserves to earn a bit of coin for providing the service. And how can we be mad at an ATM when it's soooo cute?
What infuriates me is the inter-bank ATM fee, when you get slugged for using a Westpac ATM when you're with the NAB, and so on. When I was a kid, there were no fees for using another bank's ATM. They had competing networks – anyone remember Cashcard Tellers? – so you could use CBA cards in Westpac, but not at St George. And so on.
I've seen the figure that it costs banks $1 a time to process other banks' ATM fees, and it's been commented that charging consumers $2 for that service is exorbitant. And so it is. But what I want to take issue with is the $1. According to the article quoted earlier, Westpac said that "There are significant costs when a customer uses a non-Westpac ATM." Bollocks. You can't tell me that in this era of high-speed interconnected networks, it costs $1 for one computer to ask another whether a bank account has any money in it. Technically, it's about as complicated as checking your email – it's just one server polling another and getting a reply. And it doesn't cost $1 a time to use internet banking, which is surely a more complicated transaction. And if swiping a card and withdrawing funds did really cost a dollar, the EFTPOS network would be costing retailers an absolute fortune. It's just profiteering, nothing more. And we shouldn't stand for it.
So here are ten ways to beat ATM fees. Please add your own.

• Use cash out on EFTPOS. Buy the pissiest, cheapest thing you can at Woolies, like a single box of matches or something, and then get $100 cash out at the same time. There may be queueing involved, but think of the money you'll save. And as an added bonus, it'll infuriate both the cashier and everyone else queueing.
• Don't pay cash – put everything on a credit card. You'll pay it off faithfully each month. Sure you will. And you'll have to eat at more expensive places that take credit cards. But that's okay. Once you've maxed out your card, you can just get another one. Banks are unscrupulous, so you're sure to find another one with a fantastic limited-time low-interest offer.
• Hoard your cash in a shoebox under your bed. There's a chance of being robbed. But that's better than using banks, when you're guaranteed to be robbed.
• Move next door to a branch of your bank. This can be costly and inconvenient to do, and given the number of branches closing these days, you'll probably end up living on George St. But at least you'll be able to withdraw all the cash you need every morning. Until you run out of your pitifully small number of fee-free transactions, and end up paying anyway.
• Have no money. I've tested this one in the past, and it works well. With no money in your account, there is nothing to withdraw. Goodbye, withdrawal fees.
• Use a passbook like an old person. Again, there's a lot of queuing, and probably a whole lot of other fees. But at least those fees won't technically be ATM fees. So at least you'll have won on principle.
• Rob a bank. That way, even if the bank manager charges you $2 to withdraw all the money from the safe after you hold a gun to their head, you'll come out ahead. But if you choose to rob your own bank, don't show the manager your ATM card and say that this should count as one of your five monthly fee-free transactions.
• Alternatively – ram raid an ATM. They can't charge you $2 when they're disconnected from their networks, and you're making a withdrawal with a hacksaw.
• Buy a few banks. Many commentators have noted that the Australian banking sector has scope for further consolidation. If you buy three or four banks and combine them, then there will be four times as many 'home' ATMs you can use. This technique is also known as the '1 pillar' approach.
• Opt out of the whole cash-based economy. If you deal exclusively in bartered transactions, the banks will get nothing. Note that this may work better for those conducting primitive, predominantly agrarian lifestyles.

Backwards Australia Fair

Today's Australia Day, when everyone sings Advance Australia Fair incessantly. (The version on the tennis during the Hall of Fame induction was particularly painful.) It's commonly known that there is an obscure second verse. But did you know that the original song had five verses, many of them even more excruciating than the anthem we suffer through today? For instance, "Her sons in fair Australia's land / Still keep a British soul?"

According to Wikipedia, the original version of the song had 5 verses. Most of them are cringemakingly pro-Britain. Check out the original second verse:
When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
With all her faults we love her still,
"Britannia rules the wave!"
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"
Then follows the third verse, which became the second verse when it was adopted as the national anthem, and was rewritten to be a bit less sexist. But now for the really cringemakingly pompous and pro-British fourth and fifth verses:
While other nations of the globe
Behold us from afar,
We'll rise to high renown and shine
Like our glorious southern star;
From England, Scotia, Erin's Isle,
Who come our lot to share,
Let all combine with heart and hand
To advance Australia fair!
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"
Shou'd foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand;
Britannia then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
Her sons in fair Australia's land
Still keep a British soul.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"
But even lamer than "sires of yore" is the extra Christian verse they still sing when the anthem's performed in a church:
With Christ our head and cornerstone,
We'll build our nation's might
Whose way and truth and light alone,
Can guide our path aright
Our lives, a sacrifice of love
Reflect our Master's care,
With faces turned to heaven above,
Advance Australia Fair.

They should have chosen Waltzing Matilda. But even Tie Me Kangaroo Down would've been better.

Australia Day: Give us a break

Who'll be Australian Of The Year? On second thoughts, who cares? Just get those annoying dignitaries off-stage and let us enjoy our day off in peace. Dominic Knight winces at the embarrassing excesses of patriotism that are trotted out on Australia Day.

Australia Day is always a poxy holiday, but the National Australia Day Council (australiaday.gov.au) has outdone itself this year.
The fun kicked off on Monday in Kalgoorlie when the Governor-General and Dr Fiona Wood, last year's Australian of the Year, "visited the Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame to celebrate all that's great about Australia and being Australian".
Like crap tourist attractions, apparently.
Later, Khoa Do, last year's Young Australian of the Year "[talked] with the Governor-General about what Australia Day means to us as a nation". The gold capital hasn't had this much excitement since someone last dinged their ute in the main street.
The awkward patriotism continues tonight on Ten with the Australia Day Live concert, live from the Parliament House lawns from 8.30pm. As with all events nowadays, there will be a mandatory performance by Russell Crowe's band The Ordinary Fear of God - personally, I fear Russ singing more than God. Before the concert, the Australian of the Year will be named.
While the winner is shrouded in mystery, I can reveal one thing. He will be male, white and not young, because that's true of all eight candidates: how far we've come since 1788! That said, there are several excellent nominees. With luck, John Howard will display visible discomfort if Tim Costello or Michael Kirby gets up.
As for the big day itself, what would an Australian event be without B-grade celebrities? Of the Australia Day ambassadors I've actually heard of, actor Michael Caton will be in Scone, while Ian "Turps" Turpie will be rocking Holbrook and, and, best of all, Don Burke will be in Bourke.
Most cringeworthy of all is the council's promotion of loyalty pledges in TV ads. "All new citizens make a pledge of commitment to Australia and its people. On Australia Day, shouldn't we all?" they ask.
Absolutely not. We aren't America, with its in-your-face patriotism and tacky pledges of allegiance. Not giving a stuff about wanky notions of Australian identity outside of sport is probably the most notable aspect of being Australian.
Ultimately, the only parts of the day that genuinely reflect our culture are two-up games and the sickie everyone will take on Friday.

I'd hate a mate for head of state

You would be forgiven for not realising it, but last Sunday was the inaugural A Mate For Head Of State Day. The republican movement stuttered into life with a bold new message to try and ignite popular interest in dumping the Queen for "a mate", that is, one of us. The new slogan is certainly a powerful argument for change – to a better slogan. A less awkwardly lame slogan. Preferably one that doesn't rhyme.

Don't get me wrong – I'm a committed republican. The ridiculousness of the Governor-General's role, the Union Jack on our flag, and in particular any reminder about Princess Diana irritate me profoundly. In fact,I supported the ARM even when Malcolm Turnbull was in charge of it.
And the recent ridiculousness over Princess Mary's baby's christening just served to remind us all of how odious the fuss made over monarchy is. The fact that some people are born into unimaginable wealth and privilege and some people aren't is something that we, as a society, should aim to reverse, not celebrate. And when we do celebrate it, it can create a monster. Like Paris Hilton.
But if we're going to win this argument, we need something less embarrassing than "A mate for head of state". For starters, it sounds extremely bloky – it's not surprising to learn that Peter Fitzsimons thought it up, possibly thinking of getting one of his old Wallaby mates into Yarralumla. (Actually, John Howard would probably go for that idea.) And as the day's organiser Anne Henderson denies it, (same link)many people think it sounds gender-specific. To my mind, it sounds like is a Singo ad campaign from the 80s, like "You oughta be congratulated" or something. The only use for the slogan I can think of is if the first candidate for President was Bob Hawke.
Henderson argues that the republican movement needs to focus on the idea of 'one of us', and get away from all the 'sophistry' and debate about models that consumed the last discussion. That's a pretty good idea. So why not say 'one of us' instead of 'a mate'? Frankly, when that word is used by members of the inner-city intelligentsia behind this push, it just sounds awkward.
Besides, do we really want 'a mate' for head of state? Someone you'd go for a beer with down the pub? The most popular Governor-General in recent years was Sir William Deane, who I can't imagine anyone calling 'mate'. In fact, judges spend their entire careers trying to distance themselves from seeming like 'one of us'. But he was enormously popular simply because he consistently acted with enormous integrity and humanity, and his wisdom and compassion frequently shamed other members of the political elite. Calling for a 'mate' seems to send the wrong message about the kind of person we want. It cheapens the office, really.
I think the thing to focus on is the idea of dumping the monarchy and Britain. The Queen is popular, but Prince Charles isn't, so Marr's point that the referendum may need to wait until after she goes is probably correct. (Amusingly enough, Charles once offered to serve as Governor-General, and was outraged when we turned down his generous offer.) I reckon a simple poster with a goofy photo of Charles with a Union Jack, and a big slogan saying "King of Australia?" would be more than enough to rally support behind the republican cause. Better yet, a photo of Camilla with "Queen of Australia?" After all, the ARM's membership soared even when they announced their engagement. Imagine the coronation!
The biggest problem with the republic is that seems at once radical and meaningless. It's a huge change in constitutional terms that bears virtually no impact on everyday life. Changing whose head is on the coins won't mean more of them in anyone's pockets. So for this change to happen, there needs to appear to be something wrong. The 'ain't broken, don't fix it' mentality is strong in this country, and it won't be overcome by the elite who care about this kind of thing talking about a 'mate' because they think that's the kind of language that ordinary Australians understand.
Republicans need to do more than this. We need to get the whole of Australia feeling the sense of disgust we feel when we remember how closely our constitution entwines us with England, and when we see the Union Jack in the dominant position on our flag. We also need to unlock the fundamental sense of Australian resentment towards toffy Englishness that is the key to the passion of all Ashes series. These are archaic, inappropriate symbols and constitutional rules for an independent country that loves to distance itself from Britain in other aspects of life, and we need to make that tension apparent.
Hereditary monarchy, with its trappings of wealth and privilege, is a fundamentally British but totally un-Australian notion. The sooner republicans can convince the rest of the population there is something rotten at the heart of our constitution, the more likely it is that we'll actually support it.

The Return Of Osama Part XXIII: The Revenge

All truly great horror-movie villains never really die. Characters who've terrorised us for decades like Freddy Kreuger from the Nightmare On Elm Street series, hockey-mask Jason from Friday the 13th series and Deuce Bigalow from the Male Gigolo series always rise from their grave in the last frame, threatening us with the prospect of yet another sequel. So too with the greatest villain of our time, Osama Bin Laden, who has just released another video from the undisclosed location that everyone except the US Army knows is Pakistan.

I'm glad Osama's back in the public eye, because it's a wonderful reminder of George Bush's total failure to capture him in the more than four years since September 11. And it coincides nicely with the decision to go after Saddam Hussein instead, and conflate the two supervillains in a 'War On Terror', now being recognised by the American public as the farce it has so clearly always been. And although I won't go as far as to say that I'm delighted to see he's alive and well, Bin Laden's return, with the references to the London and Madrid bombings and the polls on Iraq designed to prove that he's still alive and kickin', ought to ratchet the pressure on Bush up several notches more.
Well, it would have, if bin Laden hadn't proposed a truce if the Americans withdrew their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a withdrawal – from Iraq, at any rate – has been increasingly likely, with the Democrats finally making political capital out of the Iraq debacle (or, as the Daily Show likes so call it, "Mess-o-potamia".) But now that bin Laden has demanded it, Bush can posture and say how he won't negotiate with terrorists, etc. In fact, his Press Secretary, Scott McClelland, has already ham-fistedly said that "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business."
Or at least that's the theory. The practice is that we instead dump $2 trillion on a protracted, completely unrelated conflict that make terrorist attacks a daily event in that country.
In fact, bin Laden could have chosen no better way to prolong America's involvement in Iraq than by coming out and suggesting a truce. What, does he not understand media management in modern democracies or something?
I still don't think American, or Australian troops, should be withdrawn from Iraq yet, though, on the basis that it would be almost as wrong to abandon the country as it was to invade it in the first place. But as soon as the Iraqi defence forces and police have been built up to an adequate level, they should leave immediately – their presence there serves as a constant justification to build support for the insurgents. And it's not surprising that ordinary Iraqis aren't exactly stoked about having American troops everywhere all the time. It's annoying enough for us Sydneysiders when they're just out drinking in Kings Cross.
As I write this, the ubiquitous CIA experts have verified that the person on the tape really is bin Laden. (Not that the CIA has the greatest track record when it comes to identifying him.) And he's promised that Al Qaeda has more attacks on the way. So while we don't know where he is, or what he's planning, there is one thing we can virtually guarantee. This horror movie will have many more sequels.

A salute to Damir Dokic

It isn't said often enough, but Damir Dokic is a genius. In the vast pantheon of crazy fathers from Joe Jackson to Richard Williams, there is no-one to hold a candle to him for sheer lunacy. And while Jelena struggles for form, Damir's latest outburst shows he's absolutely on top of his game.

What rant it was. Featuring the traditional Serb hatred of Croatia, spiced with conspiracy theorist hatred of the Catholic church, mixed with a twist of nuclear terrorism, the master is clearly on top of his game. And the icing on the cake was the oh-so-2006 threat to kill an Australian that shows Damir's watching and learning from the Iraqi insurgents.
The threat to kill an Australian in revenge is a new low point in his crazy ranting, marking the first time it's actually descended to the point of being criminal. This shows the limitations of the sedition laws – for our amusement, the Damirs of this world must be free to issue crazy threats against whichever random group they choose.
Then there was the threat to kidnap Jelena, which might be difficult to execute. Not only is he fairly hard to miss, but you can't tell me his vodka breath can't be smelled several hundred metres away.
I suspect that, as the saying goes, this artist may not be appreciated in his own country. The outburst was in an interview with a Serbian newspaper, and his ranting may pass for serious political commentary in the land of Slobodan Milosevic.
No, Damir must be fostered in an enviroment that is suitable for his unique talents. And I'm not thinking about a place with rubber walls. I'm thinking about a place with rubber walls – in Australia. Because just as he needs this country to make him fly off the handle, we need him to entertain us.
So we must immediately bring Damir back to Australia, although probably with a pretty serious restraining order on Jelena's behalf. I reckon she wouldn't want to be in the same state as him.
Here are some suggestions of what we could offer him. Please add your own, and we will put together an offer he can't refuse.

• Our leading shock jock these days is the fairly insipid Stan Zemanek. Damir would simply blow him out of the water – he says more outrageous things in one minute than Zemanek has in his entire life. And imagine what would happen if a Croatian called him?
• Similarly, he should also be offered a television talk show immediately. I don't even think he needs guests – just Damir talking would be enough. Occasionally Jelena could appear by video link from an undisclosed location to rile him by trying to have her own life. It would rate the pants off Enough Rope, because we will never be able to get enough Damir.
• Kia should rehire him to do more ads taking the piss out of his crazy ranting image. Although having him threaten to bomb their Japanese competitors would probably be going a step too far.
• He should be made Minister for Foreign Affairs. While his diplomacy could probably use a brush-up, he can't be as bad as Alexander Downer. Not only would he give us closer links to the Serbian lunar right ("moderates", as they're known there), but I'm sure he'd put in a much better performance at ASEAN karaoke nights.
• He could be sent to travel the world as a tourism ambassador for Australia. His threats against us would be fantastic promotion – anything he hates that much must be good. Although we'd have to be careful, because tourists might not come if they thought he could actually get access to a nuclear bomb. Australia would also benefit from the appeal of being a place where Damir isn't.
• He'd be a perfect contestant for a second series of Celebrity Big Brother. After all, he clearly should be locked up.
• Tennis Australia needs some top-notch women's coaches to improve a lacklustre bunch of young players, and Damir got excellent results with Jelena for the small price of making her entire life a misery. All they'd need to say to the players would be "Win, or you'll be coached by Damir."
• He could be sent to Cronulla to ease ethnic tensions. The warring groups could put aside their differences and agree that they have a common hatred of Damir;
• Dokic could promote Gillette razors. The slogan would be "Use our razors, and you won't look like Damir."
• The Nine network needs a new permanent CEO, and the situation's so desperate that they're apparently even considering Eddie McGuire. But with Damir's gift for shouting, he could be a boss after Kerry Packer's own heart.

But the best reason to get him to come back is that while living in Australia, he'd be relatively unlikely to nuclear bomb us. Bags he lives in Sydney.

A column about 2005

At midnight on 31 December, when the City of Sydney Council lights up the naff-sounding pulsating heart it’s putting on the Harbour Bridge to welcome in the new year, I for one will be absolutely delighted to see the back of 2005.

It’s customary at this time of year to serve up a nostalgic year-in-review piece, looking back on all the great moments of the year that was. But to be honest, I can’t think of many. In fact, the year’s been so full of awful moments that Bec and Lleyton’s wedding doesn’t even make the top 20.

So let’s relive some of the doom and gloom, shall we? If nothing else, it will fill us with hope that 2006 couldn’t possibly be as bad as 2005.

We should have guessed it was going to be a disastrous year after seeing it in with Leo Schofield’s giant mirror ball and techno remix of ‘Advance Australia Fair’. Although I have to pay tribute to him for finding a way of making that song sound worse.

But Leo’s mistakes weren’t the worst thing about the year’s beginning, of course. As the year began, we were all in shock from the devastation of the Boxing Day tsunami, whose brutal impact on the region’s poorest and most vulnerable shocked Australia out of its post-Christmas hangover, inspiring us all to open our wallets for something other than slabs and dial-a-pizza. A minute of silence was held at 9pm on New Year’s Eve, and Oxfam volunteers were everywhere collecting – an idea that is sensibly continuing this year, especially given the millions we’re wasting on fireworks.

There were numerous other natural disasters as well, most notably the earthquake in Kashmir that killed than 80,000 Pakistanis, and Hurricane Katrina. Which was followed by the man-made disaster that was the relief effort, exacerbated by the absence of so many National Guard troops who were off dealing with another man-made disaster – Iraq.

Bearing no connection whatsoever with Iraq, of course, is Al Qaeda. Bombings in London and Bali reminded us that the war on terror is far from over, and the attacks on two of Australia’s favourite homes away from home shocked us all yet again.

Our eyes never really left Bali all year, given the drug-related jams many young Australians got into. Schapelle Corby was acquitted by public opinon and the Channel Nine worm – an even more unreliable judge than the ones in Bali, who felt differently. While Michelle Leslie escaped, only to be punished all over again by the Australian media.

Saddest of all was the execution of Van Nguyen, which unleashed a wave of sympathy from the Australian public, and a wave of inflexibility from Singapore. And worse is probably to come with the sad, foolish tale of the Bali 9. Let’s hope that next year, young Australian drug smugglers don’t dare ply their trade in Asia. Or at least do it more successfully.

But it wasn’t exactly a vintage year at home, either. Most importantly of course in sport, where our cricket, rugby union and rugby league teams all took drubbings. It’s a truly bizarre year where the only sporting highlight comes from the Socceroos.

Being such impressively rabid left-wing voters, most readers of this newspaper won’t have been particularly ecstatic about the year’s political developments either. It was a year of a triumphant Prime Minister ramming through legislation despite substantial opposition. The legislation on IR, terror laws, sedition, work for welfare and the sale of Telstra all breezed through, finishing up with VSU, which got through at the last minute thanks to a Family First Senator Steven Fielding who won only 1.9% of the primary vote, and was elected only thanks to Labor preferences. Another brilliantly self-defeating bit of political strategy from the party that was led by Simon Crean.

To cap it all off, Glebe readers had to endure this column every fortnight. So all in all, a horrible year. Let’s all hope that next year is far rosier. And there is some prospect of John Howard’s retirement after ten years in the job, which alone would make 2006 a fantastic year. Yes, even if he’s replaced by Peter Costello. Or even Kim Beazley.

A column about Amex touts

There should be a special circle of hell reserved for the guys who flog American Express credit cards. They are without doubt the most infuriating people working in Australia today, with the exception of everyone involved with Australian Idol.

We’ve all seen them at shopping centres and airports, all had our personal space invaded by them because they were positioned right where we couldn’t help but walk past them, and all been aggravated by their in-your-face, hyperaggressive sales pitch. Honestly, they make Big Kev look restrained.

I’m even starting to see them in my nightmares. There I am, having an ordinary, everyday traumatic dream – you know, one of those ones where all of your teeth fall out, or you have to give a speech in public and realise halfway through that you’re naked – and then suddenly a 20-year-old spiv in a flashy, cheap suit pops up to try and force me into signing my life away. I’m scared to go to sleep.

They simply will not take no for an answer. I was accosted by a smooth young AmEx dude with far too much product in his hair at a shopping mall last weekend, and tried to fend him off by saying “No, I don’t want a credit card.” Which you’d think would settle the matter, really.

But he was far too well-trained for that. He said “No no, come over here.” I demurred, saying I had too many already. He replied, reassuringly, “No, it’s ok, just come here and I’ll show you something.” Honestly, the guy would’ve been a huge success as a flasher.

Of course I was curious about what someone so blatantly flogging American Express credit cards could possibly show me that wasn’t an American Express credit card. So, fool that I am, I walked over to his stand. He immediately pulled out a picture of three American Express credit cards, and said “Which of these credit cards do you have?” I turned away in disgust, saying I was in a hurry, and he followed me. Eventually I had to lie by saying I’d already applied and been knocked back just to escape what had become a textbook hostage situation.

I hate having to lie to a high-pressure salesman. It makes you feel dirty, like you’re the one doing something wrong. When they’re the ones trying to bully you into signing a Faustian pact to fork over massive interest payments until the difficulty of paying your bills drives you into an early grave.

Boy, I’d love to see some of those guys at the pub after work trying to pick up women. I probably should’ve just taken a leaf out of the female playbook and slapped the guy.Memo to all AmEx reps: ‘No’ means ‘no’. Next time I go to a Westfield, I’m packing mace.

AmEx aren’t the only ones. Every November my letterbox is inundated with credit card deals I’ve been “pre-approved” for. So far I’ve received offers from HSBC, ANZ, Westpac and Citibank (twice). And of course my old pals at AmEx, just in case I’d been so traumatised by the shopping centre dude that I’d been lying under my bed, refusing to talk to anyone.

Presumably all these “pre-approved special offers” are supposed to make me feel all special inside, like I’m a high-roller or something. But actually they’re just incredibly creepy, because somehow lots of banks know my name and where I live. Although thankfully there are obvious limits to the violation of my privacy. They clearly haven’t been able to pry into my actual finances, or there’s absolutely no way they’d be offering me more credit cards.

But this Christmas, I’m getting smart. I’m going to cleverly avoid all of these credit card debt traps, and do things the old-fashioned way. I’m going to buy everyone’s Christmas presents on my David Jones charge card, using the convenient Christmas option that’s absolutely interest-free. Take that, AmEx. Well, at least, the David Jones thing is interest-free as long as you pay it off by February. after which it reverts to a very reasonable 21.9%. But I’ll definitely pay it off. I’ve promised myself. And I know I will because even if I can’t find the money, I’ll just get a cash advance on my brand new AmEx.

A column about the Socceroos

I can’t remember ever watching a more enjoyable sporting event than last Wednesday’s win by the Socceroos. I think the main reason it was so very, very good was because we weren’t expecting to win. A sporting victory is always sweeter when it isn’t expected. That’s why the Premiership wins by the Swans and Tigers were so intensely satisfying, as both clubs put aside decades of disappointment to finally taste success. I’m still waiting for the AFL to uncover some evidence, or hear some appeal, that’ll mean the Swans aren’t actually premiers – it’s almost surreal.

Too often in Australian sport, we expect excellence, as our cricketers found in the Ashes series. After a decade of consistently delivering wins, we’ve become addicted to it, and can no longer take pleasure in a series like the current bloodbath against the West Indies. And then there’s the Rugby League World Cup, which I can’t understand why they even bother holding.

But has there ever been a team of underdogs like the Socceroos? For 32 years they’ve snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Even after dominating Uruguay for most of the match, no-one in the pub I was in seemed to genuinely believe they could do it. And when the match went to penalties, we felt another chapter in the annals of last-minute disappointment was being written in front of our eyes. It was the first time in the history of the game that a World Cup place was decided by penalties, and even the most optimistic fan would have tipped the Socceroos to be the first-ever recipients of that most painful of experiences.

And that’s why when John Aloisi netted the penalty that took us to Germany, the joy was overwhelming, almost outrageous. It didn’t seem possible that after years of watching from afar, with our faces pressed up to the glass of the world’s biggest sporting event, most Australians would finally be spared the ignominy of having to follow England.

The pub I was in went crazy, with shocked and delighted patrons embracing strangers and dancing on the table. My friends and I headed down to George St in the hope the fans were going wild. They didn’t disappoint, with hundreds of cars honking horns until late, and happily tipsy fans with curly yellow wigs dancing and cheering in front of traffic. It was awesome.

The scenes reminded me of a magical night in 2002, when my brother and I had braved the basement bar of Cheers to watch the quarter-final between South Korea and Spain. We were surrounded by Koreans in t-shirts saying ‘Be the Reds’, and when the Cup co-hosts somehow sneaked a win on penalties, the bar absolutely exploded onto George St in delight. Korean supporters streamed into the area from everywhere. They stopped traffic, including one poor bus that was marooned in a sea of red shirts for an hour. Internet café proprietors hung speakers out the window to play the team song, and a few brave fans actually started dancing on the roof of the bus. The scene got so out of hand that when the police arrived to try and maintain order, one of the horses bolted, throwing its rider and galloping off towards the QVB.

The most amazing thing about that night, though, was that it took place literally twenty metres from the Spanish Club on Liverpool St. As the heartbroken fans walked out onto the street, many shook hands with and hugged the Koreans. It was a beautiful thing to watch, and it made me very proud that this must be just about the only place in the world where football supporters would embrace, rather than stab on another

And what did South Korea have in common with the Socceroos, apart from a nail-biting win on penalties against a traditional power? Their coach was Guus Hiddink. With a man of his experience encouraging them on, the team dared to believe, and they succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Come next July, that could just possibly be us. And if our master coach can somehow take us to the semi-finals of the world’s greatest sporting event, we’ll all be dancing on top of buses.

A column about being cool

I was sitting with friends at the pub last week, celebrating someone’s 30^th birthday with a few quiet, contemplative ales. But just as I was queuing at the bar, somebody drew a gun. Fortunately, though, was made out of pink plastic, and attached to a video game machine, Time Crisis III. It’s a fantastic game, actually – it lets you arbitrarily shoot a lot of terrorists dead, while accidentally slaying a few civilians along the waay. John Howard would like it.

There’s nothing new about the irritating bleeps of electronic machines interrupting your evening’s drinking, of course. And people staring mindlessly into a screen is now a given in any venue with a liquor licence. But I’ve never seen videogames instead of pokies in a pub before. The refitted, renamed Darlington Hotel in Cleveland St, Chippendale, though, has created a mini-Timezone, with pinball, arcade games, and best of all, one of those wacky Japanese photo-booth machines that lets you print your intoxicated, bleary-eyed image on a little sticker, alongside a cartoon kitten.

This discovery made me nerdishly excited, because I am very much of the gaming generation – Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros was my first serious adolescent crush. And although I managed to resist their siren song for most of the evening, and actually talk to humans, I found myself constantly casting longing glances in the direction of the pinball machine.

Most of the trendy pubs I’ve been to would rather redecorate with RSL Club carpet than allow tacky, noisy videogames into their swanky bars. So why has a popular, newly-renovated inner-city pub brought them in? I decided it can only mean one thing: they must be becoming cool. Because it seems that this year, irony is the most fashionable thing of all. Uncool is becoming the new cool.

When you think of ‘uncool’, one name comes to mind: David Hasselhoff. The guy who enjoyed running around with an oiled torso so much that he bought Baywatch when it was about to be axed. The guy who’s a famous pop star – but only in Germany.

But Hasselhoff – or at least, making fun of him – has become the internet’s biggest phenomenon this year. Countless people have Photoshopped him into famous images and emailed them everywhere – it’s become known as “Hoffing”. Only a few hours after the story broke, for example, I got emailed a picture of a shirtless Hasselhoff as a “safety inspector” protecting the entrance the Lane Cove Tunnel hole. Well, it’s better that most spam.

On the crest of his own ridiculousness, the Hoff hosted the ARIAs, and is now even making a Knight Rider movie. So while people are laughing at Hasselhoff, he’s laughing all the way to the bank. I’ll bet Vanilla Ice wishes more people were poking fun at him.

The coolness of uncool is also behind the success of one of Sydney’s hottest new bands, The Presets, who play catchy pop songs constructed from daggy 80s bleeps and dodgy drum machines straight off a cheap Casio. At their live shows, they self-consciously parody early ‘90s rave culture, yelling “go hard or go home!”, and getting the audience to bat giant, Madchester-esque balloons around. And, in a nod to the likes of myself, the videoclip for the album’s first single, ‘Are You The One,’ even has footage of a dodgy 1980s Nintendo boxing game on it. I was so impressed.

I’m delighted by the idea that things that are silly and fun are becoming cool, because I was never very good at the more elegant varieties of fashion. So I’m relieved to learn that we no longer have to pose on stainless steel stools in bars and try to look elegant, but are allowed to go and shoot plastic guns or play pinball in the corner. But it seems that the only thing that’s uncool in this new, ironic, sensibility is to not be laughing at yourself. And if even the hilariously vain David Hasselhoff can do it, anyone can. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I’ve got an urgent appointment with some digitally-generated terrorists. And I’m no longer ashamed to admit it.

A column about iTunes

At the time of going to press, rumours were flying furiously around about the iTunes Music Store finally making it to Australia on Tuesday of next week. If the rumours are true, by the time you read this, the Inner West’s phalanx of white headphone-toting iPodders will finally be able to legally download music through the software that comes with their stainless steel status symbols. This is momentous news for both the inner-city trendies and the computer nerd community. How momentous? Well, it’s almost as good as if your computer could make you a latte and play Red Dwarf trivia with you at the same time.

If you’re neither one of the Coke-bottle-glasses brigade nor a black skivvy-wearing iPoseur who hangs tough at the Glebe Pt Rd AppleCentre, though, you could be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. The iTunes Music Store is the world’s most popular way of legally buying music for your computer. In America, songs cost 99c, and over 500 million of them have been purchased since the service started two and a half years ago. Albums cost only $9.99, which, at current exchange rates, is less than half the $30 we pay for CDs. The songs are automatically copied to your iPod, and can be burnt onto blank CDs. In short, it’s the best way to prevent stealing music. Or at least it would have been if those telltale white headphones didn’t make it so easy for would-be music thieves to just mug iPod owners instead.

It’s been a long time coming, and fans have been disappointed before. There were apparently plans to launch it midyear, and Sony/BMG’s disagreement with Apple was cited as the reason for the delay. I think they should have pressed on regardless – the store’s potential lack of Shannon Noll and Anthony Callea songs is actually a feature.

Why’s it taken so long? Sweden, Austria, Japan and even Luxembourg now have their own iTunes stores. So I can’t understand why Australian record companies have been so narky about all this. On the one hand they constantly complain about how piracy’s hit CD sales, and on the other they make things impossible for the company that’s doing most to promote legal downloading. Sure, Sony’s got its own far more unpopular range of music players, and is probably trying to lock its music into them. But they need to look at the big picture. Because piracy is absolutely rife. It doesn’t just happen through the high-profile offenders like Napster and Kazaa. These days, you can borrow a CD off a mate and burn a perfect copy in a couple of minutes – or just let software like iTunes digitise it for you. Entire TV series can now be downloaded from the internet, and while it’s mostly smut and Star Trek for now, it can’t be long before this starts eating into DVD sales of good programmes.

But the iTunes store is priced so low that it may just save the industry – and not just the music industry. The American store now sells TV shows for a mere $2 shortly after they go to air. And while it seems more humane to force Desperate Housewives addicts to go cold turkey than to allow them to download their fix the next day, the bottom line is that people are paying for content that, whether by downloading or swapping videotapes, they previously got for free. Selling downloadable feature films – the most popular content for illegal downloads as people get faster internet connections – is surely not far away.

Even after years of the industry lecturing us on how it’s wrong to copy things, it’s safe to say that most Australians aren’t too fussed if it’s “just for a mate.” So another way must be found of extracting value from this content. The answer lies in making it more pleasant and convenient to buy legal content. Which is exactly what the iTunes music store does. So when it finally arrives, let’s applaud a victory for common sense. It will lead to the spread of legal, paid-for content in place of the pirated. It may also lead to the dangerous proliferation of Desperate Housewives video clips. But that’s a price I’m prepared to pay.

A columns about Wests Tigers

In case you’ve been avoiding all news sources for weeks because of the clear and present danger of reading about Australian Princess, and have somehow missed the 18,492 other references to it elsewhere in recent editions of The Glebe, the Wests Tigers – or as they are more correctly known, the Balmain Tigers – overcame odds of 150 to 1 to win their first premiership since 1969. Or 1952 if you’re from the wrong half of the joint venture. So it was quite a big deal, with the game on the big screen at Leichhardt Oval a party at the leagues club on Victoria Rd raging on until well into the night – and hangovers raging on for far longer than that.

Sydneysiders love a good sporting bandwagon, usually joining well after it becomes embarrassingly obvious that they’re only interested because a team’s winning. Take the Swans, whom most of us care about only to rub it into our mates from Melbourne. After their premiership, Sydney might actually give the team its attention in 2006, at least until their first loss.

Balmain’s triumph has also started a massive bandwagon of its own, so I’m not going to pretend I’ve been a fan since birth, whose first words were “Wayne Pearce”. Embarrassingly, I grew up supporting the not-exactly-mighty North Sydney Bears, and since they were shafted by the Sea Eagles, I haven’t paid much attention to the game other than at Origin time. All the fuss about a joint-venture club winning made me think every Tigers fan should be grateful they didn’t have to merge with those silvertail scum from Manly.

I did go to a Tigers game a few years ago with a friend who’s usually the loudest person yelling abuse at Leichhardt Oval. (And is yet to utter the word “Wests” when talking about his beloved team.) Remembering the game – and just as importantly the pub crammed full of black and gold afterwards – makes me think that the reason so many people got behind the Tiges this year is because they’ve reminded us what’s best about rugby league. Particularly after the Bulldogs have done so much in recent year to showcase what’s worst.

The game is a tribal, suburban one. It’s about the ground down the road from your house where you grew up, the local leagues club where you learnt to play the pokies, and coming together with your mates to support your team and hate Manly. And that’s why Super League was such a disaster. It took the game to a bunch of people who didn’t give a stuff about it at the expense of people who did. Really, the Adelaide Rams? Western Reds? They actually paid someone to think up that strategy?

But we are talking about a game with so little understanding of its fans or its own nature that the Rabbitohs had to go to the Federal Court before the team with one of its proudest histories and biggest fanbases was actually allowed back into the competition. It still hasn’t entirely recovered from the people who half-killed it in order to save it. You can’t tell me people in the Illawarra like having to support the Dragons. And even today, I’ll bet more people care about the Newtown Jets than the Melbourne Storm.

With all the mucking around by its administrators, it’s taken a long time for the code to win its way back into the hearts of Sydneysiders. Balmain’s win may be the turning point. The team that still means something in its own community, and plays the majority of its games in the suburbs it came from. They won over the whole of Sydney, reminding us all why we fell in love with the game in the first place. So congratulations, Tigers, for the against-the-odds success story of the year. And who knows? If they can keep thrilling Sydney like this, the game may actually survive. Let’s just hope Manly doesn’t.